


you're never gonna fit in much, kid

by captain_starcat



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe – School, Detention, Gen, Io is not an okay place, Lister is a terrible influence, Rimmer’s teenage melodrama, and he’s proud of it, gen that is gen but could be pre-slash if you let it, is this the human value you call…friendship?, that time Rimmer divorced his parents, vague allusions to S8 events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-07 17:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19089751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_starcat/pseuds/captain_starcat
Summary: Back on Io, his mother would’ve called it “being a disgrace to village idiots” and “besmirching the name of Rimmer,” but he’s not on Io anymore, so ‘culture shock’ will do just fine.(the AU where Rimmer and Lister meet in detention at school; the school, and possibly the galaxy, may never be the same again~)





	you're never gonna fit in much, kid

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by the SVIII episodes Pete 1 & 2, aka the best part of SVIII (fight me) ;)  
> Title from Teenagers by MCR, because of course.
> 
> I wrote the roughest of rough drafts for this over a year ago, according to my file system? And then didn't touch it until last week, haha. Makes this my ~actual~ first RD fic, I guess...?
> 
> Also, I have no idea how this school system works. Shh, just go with it.

When Arnold Rimmer divorces his parents at age 14, the Ionian government refuses to make him a ward of the state.

“What?!” Arnold screeches when his lawyer tells him. “Why?!”

“It’s a combination of several factors, really,” Mrs. Travers, his lawyer, replies, matter-of-fact. “You’d cost them money, your parents are loud in the community, and quite frankly, I think the government just doesn’t want to put up with you.”

“Oh.” He deflates.

“Don’t worry, they’re not quite prepared to toss you out an airlock. I think they dredged up a relative somewhere for you to go live with,” Mrs. Travers says, checking her bulging clipboard. “Ah yes, you’re to finish your schooling on Earth.”

“Earth?” Arnold wails, deflating further.

“Yes, Earth. Apparently you’ve some distant cousin or other. It’s that or the airlock, I’m afraid.”

Given that delightful set of options, Rimmer leaves Io for Earth. He packs up his life, gets a taxi to the station, and boards the cramped interplanetary shuttle, alone. He doesn’t say goodbye to anyone. There's no one he wants to say goodbye to. He does, however, leave something unique and disgusting in each of his brothers’ beds on his way out, which helps. Twenty-five hours later, he’s on Earth.

He moves in with a total stranger, and against all expectations—and to his pleasant surprise!—he isn’t murdered and sold for parts. His ‘cousin’ is a tiny old bat of a lady who watches soaps all day and mostly ignores him, which Arnold finds both completely infuriating and yet somehow soothing all at once. Of course he’s fully convinced she’s lying about her identity, and isn’t his cousin at all. For one thing, how could anyone so uninterested in his dizzying prospects and relentless failures _really_ be related to him?

And then, of course, he starts school. He’s miserable, obviously. Earth is just _wrong_ in so many ways. It's chaotic and grimy, and absolutely smegging covered in obnoxious, horrifying people, and their trash. Arnold was previously unaware it was possible to miss a manicured bubble dome _quite so much_. But even ignoring the smoggy trash-planet part, his feelings about change—well. He’s nearly disfigured his feet before, more than once, wearing shoes he’s long outgrown, instead of sucking up and dealing with novelty in his footwear. So, new school, new culture, new planet: he’s doing _smegging_ _fantastic._

He lasts three months at his first Earth school. Officially, he’s kicked out due to ‘culture shock’ and his ‘inability to adapt,’ but really, it’s because they don’t like him, Arnold knows. ‘Culture shock’ is also why he’s kicked out of the next school he’s sent to—and the one after that. And then one after that. Back on Io, he muses, his mother would’ve called it “being a disgrace to village idiots” and “besmirching the name of Rimmer,” but he’s not on Io anymore, so ‘culture shock’ will do fine. So far, at his fifth, we’re-scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel-here school, ‘culture shock’ has only gotten him detention, for a week.

And honestly, Arnold is fine with this. He’s a full-on _master_ of detention these days; well versed in the unspoken rules of teenage group punishment, educational flavour: don’t talk to anybody, don’t make eye contact, engage in camouflage whenever possible. And for god’s sake, if someone wants your lunch money, give it to them.

A week of scraping and invisibility in exchange for finally speaking his mind, for ‘accidentally’ letting the sadistic bucket of putrid slime masquerading as a PE teacher know what Arnold truly thinks of him?

An absolute smegging bargain.

 

*

 

The first day is uneventful. Dull institutional room, dull institutional tables and chairs, dull institutional discipline. Detention is detention is detention, Arnold has learned, no matter the school, no matter the moon ( _or planet,_ he shudders. _Eugh._ ).

On the second day, after the supervising teacher once again settles into her corner, wielding her bodice ripper with aggressive apathy and a glare around the room, something happens to Arnold that’s never happened before—certainly never in detention, anyway. One of his fellow miscreants, the badly-dressed baboon-lookalike one seat over, scoots up a chair and tries to _talk_ to him.

“Hey, you’re the new kid, right? Transferred from Io? I thought they’d be going easy on you, how’d you get detention _already_ when you haven't even been here a month?”

Already on edge, Rimmer bristles further at that. But the slobby punk in the next chair only looks at him with sympathy and amusement, and _weirdly_ , Arnold doesn't actually think he's being mocked. So instead of drawing himself up, letting his tongue loose and starting (yet another) fight, Arnold decides to take a chance, and share his tale of injustice and woe. And he does, with the full score of dramatics, arm waving, offended pride, and flaring nostrils it deserves.

And the kid listens.

Instead of sneering or losing interest, or brushing him off, or telling him he deserved it, this strange grotty earthling pays attention. He laughs in most of the right places, and interjects little comments ("really?" and "oh, bet he _hated_ that," and "you didn't," and "then what?"). By the end of the story, his companion is cackling so hard he's wheezing a little, probably from the cheap cigarettes Rimmer can smell on him a desk away. Feeling vindicated and proud for not alienating something resembling a fellow human for once in his life, Rimmer basks in the attention.

It’s all going swimmingly, until the kid gets his breath back enough to say, still sniggering, "You're a real piece of work, know that?"

“Excuse me?!” Rimmer immediately re-bristles. He wonders why he even bothered. Why he would _ever_ bother. It’s official, he will never bother ever, ever again.

"I completely get mouthing off at Coach Ackerman, but I can't believe you had the balls to say that to Hollister!" the gerbil-faced delinquent giggles.

"Yes, well," Rimmer snaps.

"No really, that was brutal,” the scummy weirdo insists. “You don’t know _how many times_ I've wanted to call out that rug on his head for the dead animal it truly is, and I never have _._ Figured I was in here enough as it is, yeah?" he says, gesturing around them.

Rimmer's still working out whether this offensively-kitted hooligan actively hates him or not, when the hooligan sticks out a hand, still smiling – _smiling at Rimmer, what?_ —and says "Dave Lister."

Rimmer freezes. His mind has gone blank with shock and panic. He automatically takes the outstretched hand, trying not to wince at the callouses and the state of the nails, and shakes it.

"Rimmer. Er, Arnold. Arnold Rimmer," he manages weakly.

"Hey, good to meet you, man," Dave Lister says, and, bizarrely, sounds like he means it. "Guess we'll be seeing more of each other, I'm here all week as well."

"What are _you_ in for?" Rimmer can't help but ask.

Lister grins, and his whole face lights up. Something in Rimmer’s stomach gives an alarming wobble.

“Well,” Lister drawls, obviously pleased with his captive audience, “you won’t _believe_ this level of cryptofascist bullsmeg, but let me lay out what happened...”

It’s not until Lister's midway through his story about four goats, the packet of dye, the teacher's washroom, and this girl he's trying to impress, that Rimmer realizes: in typical _complete_ _total useless_ _failure_ fashion, he's _epically_ _ruined_ yet another chance to be an Ace, or a Duke, or an AJ, and not stupid smegging ‘ _A_ _rnold_ ’ again. He spends the rest of the day—and night—and the next morning—absolutely _kicking_ himself over it. God, why does he _always_ have to smeg _everything up_?

 

*

 

But the next afternoon, when Lister arrives in the detention room ten minutes late (earning the gimlet eye of the supervisor), he scans the scattered faces until he sees Rimmer, and grins.

"Yo Rimmer!" he yells, making a beeline over to sit with him. Massively flustered and pleased, Arnold _almost_ can't care about the name thing.

Lister, he learns over the course of the week, is exactly the sort of classless scum Arnold’s been raised to hate. Lister skips lessons. He has zero respect for proper authority. He hangs out with the kind of utter lowlifes he might maybe, potentially, theoretically be _slightly_ be too good for, smokes _far_ too many horrible cigarettes, and _has really stupid hair_. To the surprise of absolutely no sane person, Dave Lister and detention are old bosom pals.

He’s also shown an alarming tendency to seek out Rimmer’s company, _on purpose_ , and, even more disturbingly, _enjoy_ it. It’s unprecedented, and unsettling, and certainly doesn’t look good for Lister’s potential sanity. That being said, Lister is unexpectedly full of useful information. He’s happy to tell Rimmer which teachers can be buttered up with flattery or sweets, which toilets to avoid, and how to always get at least a C on Mr. McLaren’s essays (“Mention the duality of self.” “What about the duality of self?” “Doesn’t matter, just mention it!”). Not once has Lister tried to eat him, or throw him in sewage. Rimmer wonders if this is what having a real friend is like.

At the end of the week, when Lister outlines a bold scheme to wreak revenge on those who would dare give them detention, involving the aforementioned toupee, laxatives, and the cafeteria's rhubarb custard, Rimmer’s fully on board. In fact, he has more than a few ripe suggestions of his own.

The plan goes off practically without a hitch—that is to say, it goes perfectly right up until they’re caught.

"This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship," Lister leans in to whisper, slinging an arm around Rimmer’s shoulders as they're dragged up to Principal Hollister's office.

And though Rimmer knows by now it's just Lister’s great smegging love for _Casablanca_ talking, he can't help but smile ( _an actual smile! unbelievable!_ ) back anyway.


End file.
